Joe Allegretti writes: We began the season as usual, hunting doves. Ammo and Pepper retrieved numerous birds for us. We also hunted with Steve Manser and his pup Cody. It was great to see Cody retrieving birds. Remi was nursing a sore foot, so she had to stay home.

We had another great trip to the Cannonball Company in North Dakota. On the first day, we hunted a sunflower field. I was a blocker and had Ammo and Pepper with me. While waiting for the pushers, the hunter next to me downed a rooster in heavy cover. After 5 minutes, I brought Ammo over and he found the bird, still alive. My father dropped three birds while standing out in a cut wheat field. Ammo and/or Pepper retrieved all of the birds for him. Pepper also found a wounded bird -- I'm not sure whose it was -- while we were blocking.

On the second day, we walked some treelines to a ditch. Pepper flushed and retrieved a rooster for me. She also found another rooster I had dropped on a very long passing shot. Later, while hunting a standing corn field, I hunted Ammo and Pepper. Once we reached the end of the corn field, we hunted out a ditch. Ammo found a bird that had been shot 10 minutes earlier by one of the blockers. He also flushed and retrieved two roosters, both of which would not have been found without him (we went after one that had flown off about 200 yards away). Pepper made a great retrieve, chasing down a rooster that had hit the ground running.

On the last day we hunted our guide's corn fields and the ditch which runs behind one of the fields. I started off in the ditch with Pepper, leaving Ammo in the truck. She flushed a nice rooster for me and retrieved it from heavy cover. We then worked the corn field. Pepper retrieved a couple of other birds, some shot by others. At the end of the push, she found a bird that had been shot a few minutes earlier by one of the blockers. We then pushed a second corn field back, with Pepper flushing many birds. She retrieved one last bird for me. Meanwhile, my dad had left his liftgate open in his truck, and Ammo, hearing all of the shooting, broke out of his kennel in time to retrieve birds that the blockers were shooting.

Ammo and Pepper also did a nice job flushing and retrieving four roosters for my son and his friend on a junior pheasant hunt in the Lockwood Valley. Remi hunted with her family on that hunt as well, flushing and retrieving roosters for Richard’s boys.

The last hunt of the season was a trip to the Kern refuge. Ammo retrieved a Gadwall that splashed down behind us in some cover.